Modeling of physical objects has many applications in the area of computer graphics. For example, computer-based models of objects may be employed to generate animation, to insert digital images into film or photographic images, to design objects, and for many other purposes. As computing power has increased and modeling algorithms have become more sophisticated, it has become possible to model objects of increasing complexity. For example, an object model may include data representative of hundreds or thousands of individual surfaces, or more.
While a complex model having many surfaces may express more realistic detail than a less complex model, maintaining a large number of model surfaces may present usability challenges. For example, as the number of surfaces of a model increases, it may become more difficult to display the model to a user in a way that allows the user to easily interact with the model. A user seeking to edit or manipulate a particular surface of a complex model may be frustrated by a cluttered model display, and may be more likely to inadvertently modify a surface other than the one intended.